I have been looking around at a lot of different distance open water swimming sites lately and then looking at the times. It seems to me that the times are way to fast. Then again I'm not an open water swimmer, though that will change this year. I'm still confused by the times and speed I seem to be seeing. Here are just a couple of examples:
Little Red Lighthouse swim, best time: 1:07 for a 7.8 mile swim!
Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, best time 5:45 for a 28 mile swim. Heck you have to finish in 10 hours.
And then from here: 47-year old Slovenian ...He also broke the world record for non-stop swimming when he covered 313 miles of the Danube in just 84 hours in 2001. That's an average of 3.7 miles an hour.
I can see that the tides and water flow would help, but still I have seen a lot of averages of 3-4+ miles an hour. Those would be close to 1500 WR times in a pool. How can people sustain such speeds for so long? What am I missing here because I'd like to be able to do those kinds of speed.
Parents
Former Member
Believe it.
The Manhattan Marathon Swim is timed to get the maximum benefit from the tides and the flow of the East, Harlem, and Hudson rivers. Same with the 7.8 mile Little Red Lighthouse Swim (Hudson river only). I did both in 2002, the former as a relay team member. I did the last leg of the relay and seemed to be flying past the final seawall. My wife, on the walkway, had to hustle to keep up.
For the LRL swim, I *barely* was able to get out of the flow of the river and into the finish area. About 10% of the field was swept past the finish area and had to be pulled out as DNF's.
I've also been in races where it took 2 minutes of all-out sprinting to go 50 yards due to oncoming currents.
Many open water races are setup to work with the tides due to safety reasons or, as in the case of the NYC races, to make them even possible at all.
Man, are those races fun. Every winter it seems like June will NEVER arrive.
-LBJ
Believe it.
The Manhattan Marathon Swim is timed to get the maximum benefit from the tides and the flow of the East, Harlem, and Hudson rivers. Same with the 7.8 mile Little Red Lighthouse Swim (Hudson river only). I did both in 2002, the former as a relay team member. I did the last leg of the relay and seemed to be flying past the final seawall. My wife, on the walkway, had to hustle to keep up.
For the LRL swim, I *barely* was able to get out of the flow of the river and into the finish area. About 10% of the field was swept past the finish area and had to be pulled out as DNF's.
I've also been in races where it took 2 minutes of all-out sprinting to go 50 yards due to oncoming currents.
Many open water races are setup to work with the tides due to safety reasons or, as in the case of the NYC races, to make them even possible at all.
Man, are those races fun. Every winter it seems like June will NEVER arrive.
-LBJ
